Press Review

“Iskakan Iravunk” says that the opposition parties that have appealed against the election results in Armenia’s Constitutional Court have done little to come up with “weighty evidence” of vote rigging. “They have even spurned a real possibility of proving the existence of 85,000 forged votes,” writes the paper. “That is to say that the appeal process will lead nowhere. More precisely, it will benefit the authorities as the latter will be able to assert that the elections were more than clean and that they addressed all complaints.”

“Chorrord Ishkhanutyun” calls the opposition appeals a “constitutional masochism.” “The fact is that the opposition has lost,” says the paper. “It has lost not because the authorities falsified the elections but because they failed to avert that falsification. They failed to avert it because they were not united and each of them played its own game. Whimpering in a united manner now is meaningless. You don’t throw punches after the fight, even jointly with others.”

“Iravunk” believes that after the parliamentary elections the governing Republican Party of Armenia (HHK) is not so much a political organization as a “corporation of people having appropriate positions in government and the economy.” Nor is oligarch Gagik Tsarukian’s Prosperous Armenia a real party, according to the paper. By contrast, the Armenian opposition camp is dominated by “political forces.” “This will substantially increase chances of opposition candidates in the presidential race and the likelihood that the [2008] elections will not involve one round,” editorializes the paper.

“Zhamanak Yerevan” says the Dashnaktsutyun party is facing a very tough dilemma: “to lose its own face or ministerial portfolios, i.e., possibilities of making lots of money.” “The issue of accepting portfolios has all but caused a split within Dashnaktsutyun,” claims the paper. “The so-called Hrant Markarian wing of Dashnaktsutyun argues that the party must not accept the authorities’ humiliating offer and must instead become opposition with honor, while others, the Vahan Hovannisian wing, are inclined to think that it has to share responsibility [for government policies] with all resulting consequences.”

“Hayots Ashkhar” continues to attack opposition leaders that have already announced their intention to run for president. The paper claims that they are only helping “the candidate of power” and are either “naïve” or “simply trying their luck because finishing second in a presidential contest is not a bad result.”

“Aravot” says that by failing to join forces now those opposition leaders are making it easier for Serzh Sarkisian to avoid a second round. The paper suggests in an editorial that they are either government collaborators or are blinded by their “narcissism,” or simply want to “remain afloat.”